The CIA has launched an internal inquiry following the resignation of its director David Petraeus, who confessed to an extramarital affair, a spokesman for the US intelligence agency said on Thursday.
“If there are lessons to be learned from this case, we’ll use them to improve,” said the spokesman, Preston Golson.
“But we’re not getting ahead of ourselves. An investigation is exploratory and doesn’t presuppose any particular outcome,” he added.
Petraeus, who was already the most celebrated US general of his generation before he took the helm at the CIA last year, resigned last week to pre-empt the revelation that he had had an affair with his biographer.
The scandal sent shockwaves through the Washington security establishment and entangled the US commander of allied forces in Afghanistan, General John Allen, whose career is on hold pending a Pentagon investigation.
Petraeus has kept a low profile since his resignation, but he will be in the limelight once again on Friday when he heads to Capitol Hill to testify before two congressional committees over a deadly attack on a US mission in Libya.